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Summarize Activity for the Company/Department

Figure 1 shows the total activity logged on all workstations for the company/department.This particular company is an engineering design firm, and makes money by producing engineering drawings; therefore, the goal of management would be to maximize the number of drawings that are produced.

Developing the Success Formula

A success formula has three main components.

First, identify the most effective practices and then share that information with the rest of the team.This consists of an examination of how the most effective team members function in the use of time and tools.With this information, you can determine patterns of time usage, workflow, and tools usage that the most effective team members use and share these practices with the other team members.

Second, eliminate or reduce unnecessary activity that is sapping the effectiveness of your team.This consists of examining the way that people use time during their day and removing distractions, such as Internet time spent on games, personal activities, and unproductive email and instant messaging.

Third, the information gathered can be used to determine if your tools and equipment are aiding in improving productivity to the extent they should be.For example, if SysAdmin takes a large portion of the time, perhaps there are training, workflow, or tools improvements that should be considered.

Figure 1
Total Computer Activity (the data in all graphs in this article is actual data, but due to privacy considerations the names and dates have been changed)

What is happening with all the time spent on the Internet?

As more and more companies are realizing, the Internet is a tool that can be used to enhance productivity, improve communications with employees and customers, and other company building activities.

The Internet is also an opportunity for exposure to loss of productivity due to time spent on non-productive activity, legal exposure to improper materials being viewed or sent, and etc.

ProductivityWizard displays in Figure 2 a breakdown of all the time spent on the Internet.From this information, you can see at a glance, the summary of Internet activity for the Company/Department.

You now have information to determine if there are improvements that need to be made in the use of the Internet in your company or department.For example, Egames, Edubious, Eshopping, Enews, and Epersonal may be activities you want to focus on and control.

Figure 2
Summary of Internet Activity

How does ProductivityWizard Categorize?

ProductivityWizard captures data about each screen name that is displayed on the computer, and the length of time spent in the screen.This is the “raw” data behind all of ProductivityWizard’s charts.

As each individual department and company are different, ProductivityWizard provides for a “learning” mechanism where you can review the screen names and decide what category you wish to place them in.Based on a large amount of testing, ProductivityWizard comes with the majority of commonly used screen names already categorized.(You can still change and edit the list if you want to re-assign screens to different categories).ProductivityWizard can be set so that as it finds new screen names that haven’t been categorized, it can ask you to assign them or let them go to “Other”.This provides you the capability to customize the data for your company, and focus on items that are key to you and your business.

Productivity Summary

The Productivity Summary chart shows how all time actively spent on the workstation was used.The breakdowns are:

SYSADMIN---in applications related to system operation, such as Windows Explorer.

DRAWING—the output of this business is engineering drawings, this is time spent in the revenue producing activity.

BUSINESS—

OFFICEAPPLICATIONS—Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and etc.

FTP—time spent either sending or receiving files via FTP protocol.

INSTANTMESSAGING—time spent in reading or composing instant messages.

EMAIL—time spent reading or composing email messages.

Figure 3
Productivity Summary

This information provides you with the analysis to see how the business can be run more effectively.For example, seeing large amounts of time spent in SYSADMIN activity raises the question as to whether the tools that people use could be made more effective, so that SYSADMIN time could be moved to DRAWING.For example, if the time spent in SYSADMIN is higher on stations running Win95, and lower on stations running Win2K, you can then determine the ROI of upgrading the operating system.With your understanding of each person’s job and capabilities, you can determine if an investment in training would bring more returns than an investment in improved tools.

Activity Summary

The Activity Summary chart shows the information that the Productivity Summary chart shows, and adds “non productive” time to it.For example, the categories of GAMES, DUBIOUS, PERSONAL, OTHER and NOTACTIVE are added.This chart shows the activity for all the time that the computer was on.

Analyzing this chart can show individuals that may be spending time and resources on activities that are not assisting the company to meet its objectives.This could range anywhere from reducing utility costs by turning off monitors or computers when idle, to an examination of time spent on email, games and other activities.

Figure 4
Activity Summary

Daily Activity Summary

ProductivityWizard also produces individual charts showing activity by category for each individual on a daily basis.This can be done on a weekly, or multi-week basis, so that you can determine patterns in workflow and productivity.

What days of the week are most effective in your organization?Why is that so?

The information in Figure 5 shows data for three employees for a week period of time.

Figure 5
Individual Charts

Chronological Data

In addition to the charts shown above, the raw data, showing the date, time of day, amount of time, and name of screen visited can be reviewed for each individual.This provides a record that may be used for security audits, and pinpointing employees that may be bringing unnecessary legal exposures to the company.These are just two of the many uses for ProductivityWizard’s chronological data.

Summary:
ProductivityWizard, an effectiveness tool

Produce summary and individual charts that provide insight to tap the true potential of your organization.

Provide the data to reward the most productive, and motivate the least productive of your employees.